There are a lot of great crab recipes on the web and I thought I would add to the mix by providing a recipe for a little known Maryland crab dish. While it goes without saying that Maryland is for crabs, I have a funny feeling that all you Shoreheads out there are going to particularly love this one.

Blue Crab Stuffed with Squirrel Meat

Ingredients:

Blue Crab

Squirrel

Old Bay Seasoning

Butter

Cream

Salt

Instructions

Choke* the crab (discard the dead man but keep crab meat see step 6).

Clean, gut and de-bone squirrel (keep the giblets and skin but discard the gizzard – see steps 4 and 6).

Mince squirrel meat and season liberally with Old Bay brand seasoning mix.

Stuff crab shell with squirrel meat and wrap the shell in the squirrel skin.*

Heat oven to 450Â°C and cook crab stuffed with squirrel meat for 15-20 minutes or until done.

Mince giblets and crab meat. Add 1 teaspoon of salt and 5 teapoons of butter (vegans may substitute extra virgin olive oil or EVOO if desired with no decrease in flavor).

Bring 1/2 cup of water or 1/2 cup of cream to a boil and add giblets-crab mince. Boil for approximately 15-20 minutes until a
thick creamy sauce clots on the surface. Add ice water as necessary to help the sauce congeal and skim from the surface.

Remove crab from oven. Dispose of squirrel skin. Pour the gibblet-crab sauce you’ve skimmed over crab shell and serve with lager or cola.

Choke – Old Eastern Shore dialect for picking a crab.

Don’t eat the skin! The skin is only used to cover the crab shell and seal in flavors.

This recipe reminds me of the time I shot a squirrel in my backyard with my b-b rifle. My mom had a small A-bomb go off in her head when she saw the squirrel wasn’t 100% dead. When we refused to stop shooting it (to put it out of its misery) she called, NO, even worse – paged my father to come home! When he called to see what was wrong she was sobbing so bad he could not tell what was going on and thought maybe I had shot a person (i.e. Dougvader). So not only did she pull the whole “911 3845” in the beeper crap- my poor dad had to come racing home from work to tell us (my bro and I) to stop shooting the squirrel, which was by then officially announced dead.

I remember seeing my dad come to the backyard trying to be all serious and stern. Finally after I got talking to him I remember saying something to the effect that “mom is crazy, she just flipped out.” He ever so quickly slipped an accidental smile, which he quickly hid and proceeded to ground me and acted like he had no idea what where I was coming from regarding mom being “crazy.”

I wish I had this recipe then, I could have asked my mom to make this!

But Thom, just think what it would’ve done to your poor mom when she saw you gunning down the requisite crab immediately after the whole squirrel incident? You’d probably still be grounded (though with the taste of this stuff it probably would’ve been worth it).

I’ve seen my mom plough through her share of crabs, picking them until they had nothing but shell left. So me shooting a crab wouldn’t have been a big deal. I think if it has fur then it qualifies on the momma Webb “Do no kill” list.

Oh, CNNN. I’m impressed. Definitely bring He3 to the science desk’s attention. I’m sure Bear can make time in his day to talk to them. If they don’t do the story, then it might be time to quit working at CNNN and branch out into your own news agency. If you are looking for a domain, I suggest http://www.newsjersey.com/, it is for sale.
As to your other question – the cat’s name was AJ, which stood for Ass Jax, Sir Ass Jax or something like that.